Blog Post 4: Project Management

While listening to the podcast with Matt, there was one major point that came to mind: the idea of a project manager and having a clear vision of project management seems to be an incredibly valuable asset for schools.  The issue that came to mind is: COST.  How much does it cost to have people managing your project for you.  After working through a passed millage and having a company provide a project management service, I can say that some aspects seemed to be worthwhile, while others were done incorrectly or were things we could have done ourselves (set up visits to schools with a wealth of technology, order to correct server so we could iPads, schedule training with another MDM company in an efficient manner).  Perhaps my experience was tainted by an unprofessional experience, but the cost of it seemed to outweigh the benefits.  Additionally, the project management company had no focus on the educational impacts; simply on the installation of updated networks, the ‘backend’ of technology and helping to purchase the devices.

Now that that’s out of the way…

One of the ironic things during the podcast was when Matt mentioned that typically project management began once a project was approved.  I thought that was interesting as the buildup to the project being approved can potentially be a huge ordeal so it seemed somewhat oversimplified to begin project management only once the project was approved.  Perhaps what Matt was referring to was when to bring in a project manager from the outside?

When Matt was discussing the issues about rolling out technology, there were a few things to which I could relate.  The first was underestimating the impact on individuals.  First, we tried to accommodate for teachers getting multiple new devices by rolling them out at different times.  So the first things teachers received were iPads in January when students did not yet have them.  We provided training on those and had hoped that teachers would familiarize themselves with the iPads throughout the remainder of the school year and into the summer.  Then, we gave teachers their new MacBooks in August (the soonest we possibly could roll them out), provided training and again hoped that a few weeks would help them get used to the newer system.  This was, however, a large issue for many teachers.  Many asked for their old desktop PC’s to remain in their classroom or come back to their classroom.

Furthermore, one of the biggest things we underestimated was the impact of the iPad at home.  While some students and their parents used them responsibly, there were certainly some struggles.  Many parents were hesitant to take the iPad away from their child since it was a learning device and they were not sure if their child was still doing ‘homework’.  This became a situation where we were fortunate to have three administrators with students in the district who could talk about setting boundaries.  In addition, we had teachers work to communicate more actively, but bringing a device into the home that many parents were not familiar with had a huge impact on many families.

I think the most difficult part of my proposal to manage is teachers utilizing and maximizing the online learning community.  If there is not enough actual buy-in, teachers will probably not receive the benefit of participating in the online professional development.  The other issue with my proposal is whether or not we can measure and truly monitor whether or not its implementation is successful.  One of the biggest downfalls in the research I was reading for my proposal was that much of the research out there is based on teacher self-evaluations, which obviously has its limitations.  So, it would be important to create or decide on a measure for student achievement or other methods of measurement other than solely relying on teachers to reflect on their experience.